Courtney, Julia

Dr. Julia Courtney is Associate Lecturer at the Open University. She received her Ph.D. from Royal Holloway College London University. She tutors post-graduate literature courses, supervises MA dissertations, and is a published poet.

2006 0-7734-5574-4This book features the efforts of a group of academics from diverse disciplines that have been working together to highlight the presence of the parrot in selected texts across the centuries. Their common purpose is to demonstrate that fictional parrots invariably function as more than decoration, comedy or badges denoting the eccentricity of their human owners. These versatile and talented birds function as markers for subtle literary techniques. Using the parrot as an interpretative tool the focus is on a range of narrative strategies and metaphorical meanings employed by the authors in question and argue that these are embodied in the attributes of the speaking bird who figures significantly in each work.